Significant effort across a range of disciplines is being made to try and get a handle on the economic cost of anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change.
For instance, British actuaries estimated in 2022 the destruction of about 50% of global GDP somewhere in the period 2070-2090. They aren't alone in their projections.
such startling figures beg the question as to how such projections can be met.
the obvious answer is incrementally rather than in one big step.
Carbon Brief looked at such questions in an article on Thursday citing the latest research by the Potsdam Institute. It's article is reproduced below.
CARBON BRIEF:
"Climate change will reduce global income by about 19% over the next 25 years, compared with a “fictional world that’s not warming”, reports the Associated Press. Poorest areas and those least responsible for climate change will take the “biggest monetary hit”, according to a new study by researchers at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, it adds.
"The impact of climate change is already set to be $38tn a year by 2049 the study finds and, by 2100, the financial cost could hit twice what previous studies estimate, the article adds.
"Average incomes are expected to fall by “almost a fifth within the next 26 years as a result of the climate crisis”, with damage six times higher than the price of limiting global heating to 2C, reports the Guardian.
"The $38tn annual cost of rising temperatures, heavier rainfall and more frequent and intense extreme weather is already locked into the world economy over the coming decades, the article adds, as a result of the “enormous emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere through the burning of gas, oil, coal and trees”. The study finds that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have already warmed the world by 1.1C, on average, since pre-industrial times, leading to extreme weather events that have cost about $7tn over the past 30 years, Bloomberg adds.
"It quotes Leonie Wenz, the scientist at Potsdam who led the study, who says: “Climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries. We have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately – if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100.”
"The economic impact of climate change is not fully understood and economists often disagree on its extent, reports Reuters, but the Potsdam study “stands out for the severity of its findings”.
" The study takes a “more granular and empirical approach than most”, accessing the actual fallout from climate-related impacts on economic growth in more than 1,600 subnational regions around the world over the past 40 years, reports BusinessGreen. It then marries this analysis with the latest climate impact projects through to 2050, to allow researchers to better project the likely impact of changes in temperature and rainfall patterns, the article adds. The report is also covered by RTÉ, Forbes and many others."
Bellcurve: it's possible publication of such studies could spark comments by drongos who deny anthropogenic climate change who might wonder why the economic benefits of destroying the world aren't included in a study about the costs of climate change.
drongo deniers are of course free to cite any research they can about the greening of Earth and increased food production and then erroneously link this to anthropogenic climate change. Bt such research is hard to find because like their entire bs pseudoscientific facade, it doesn't have an actual leg to stand on.
